Pete and James Melvin win Alter Cup qualifier

by Lynn Fitzpatrick on 13 Apr 2010 Pete and James Melvin won the Area J qualifier for the 2011 Alter Cup, part of the Cat Fight regatta hosted by Mission Bay Yacht Club in San Diego. The win qualifies them for next year’s Alter Cup, US Sailing’s Multihull Championship.

The father and son team went into the final race of a seven-race, one-discard series, trailing by one point. “It came down to the last leeward gate. We were leading the race and went left toward the shore and the regatta leaders, (who were also) the second-place boat, rounded the other gate and split with us. The third place boat followed us. The wind was in our favor and the boat that came with us moved into second place, so we won the regatta by a point,” summarized Melvin.

This is the second year that famed multihull sailor; Pete Melvin has been sailing with his 15-year old son, James on the Morrelli & Melvin-designed Nacra Infusion F18. James sailed Sabots in the Alamitos Bay Yacht Club sailing program and has access to many interesting sailboats, but only sails multihulls now. When asked why, James says definitively, “Because they are fast.”

Pete attributes their performance to a number of things, most notably his emphasis on keeping the boat powered up at all times in light winds, and their experimental foils.

“I like to fly the hull at a constant angle of heel and keep the forward speed and apparent wind speed up. A lot of multihull sailors make the mistake of pinching up in a puff but then not steering back down quickly enough as the wind drops back off. In light winds they end up sailing too high and dropping the hull back down into the water. It takes a lot of energy to build speed again. Anticipation and staying ahead of the changes in wind speed and direction are the keys. We keep the bow down and the boat going fast. I make constant rudder adjustments,” said Pete.

The F18 box rule allows for experimentation, and Pete and James have been testing high-aspect ratio daggerboards for the Nacra Infusion F18. Reasons Pete, “The heavier teams use the bigger boards because they require more lateral resistance. We’re light and don’t need as much area. When we pull our long narrow boards up in heavier air, the area that remains in the water still has a high aspect ratio compared to what the heavier teams have. We are experimenting with different shapes so we can optimize the new daggerboards we are designing for the Nacra Infusion F18.”

The other trick that Pete and James used during the Cat Fight was to polish their foils to combat the kelp in the Pacific Ocean outside of Mission Bay. “We polished the daggerboards and rudders so that when we hit kelp, it slides off more easily. When the kelp catches on our foils it ruins our concentration and speed, because we focus on trying to shake it off by changing the heel angle or pulling the foils up to clear them.”

Pete and James clearly have a good time sailing together. Says Pete, “We’ll be sailing together for a while because James is growing like a weed.”

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